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10:00 a.m.
The principal of Opportunity, Alabama’s high school finishes her speech, welcoming the entire student body to a new semester and encouraging them to excel and achieve.

10:02 a.m.
The students get up to leave the auditorium for their next class.

10:03
The auditorium doors won’t open.

10:05
Someone starts shooting.

Told over the span of 54 harrowing minutes from four different perspectives, terror reigns as one student’s calculated revenge turns into the ultimate game of survival.

MY TWO CENTS: As a parent and teacher, both at a middle school and community college, the possibility of an on-campus tragedy is my worst nightmare that proves to be a school’s horrific reality on a too-regular basis. Author Marieke Nijkamp’s debut novel chronicles a heart-wrenching 54 minutes of terror by dropout Tyler Browne, who returns to Opportunity High School the first day of a new semester to take revenge on the classmates he blames for his feelings of loss and abandonment. The story is told from four first-person perspectives: Claire, Tomás, Sylvia, and Autumn.

Claire, Tyler’s ex-girlfriend, is outside the school when the shooting begins. She’s a track star and JROTC member who runs for help with her best friend, Chris. Claire’s brother, Matt, is inside the auditorium. Claire agonizes over what she could have done to stop Tyler. Did she see any signs? Did she know this would happen? She also feels helpless being on the outside and wants to do something, anything, to help.

Tomás and Sylvia are fraternal twins and unspecified Latin@s. Tomás and his friend, Fareed, who is Afghan, is inside the school but not among those trapped in the auditorium. Before today, they were most known for pranks and picking on Tyler, but now they call for help and plan a way to free those inside the auditorium, all the while worried about loved ones inside and whether their efforts will help or cause more harm.

Autumn is a ballerina, Tyler’s sister, and Sylvia’s girlfriend. Autumn and Sylvia are locked inside the auditorium and targeted by Tyler. Autumn’s complex relationship with her brother and their abusive father in the wake of their mother’s death is revealed trough flashbacks. Tyler blames his loneliness on Autumn’s ambitious dance goals and her relationship with Sylvia.

The reader will get a fragmented picture of Tyler’s good and bad sides: protective brother, comforting boyfriend, rapist, killer. When something like this happens, we often ask why and hope to get answers, but the reasons are never enough. Nijkamp explains in our Q&A that she made the decision to have this story not be about the shooter, but about the victims, which is why we never get his first-person point of view.

For me, not really knowing Tyler added to the story’s intensity, leaving me feeling the kind of hurt, confusion, and uncertainty experienced by the fictional victims.

And since we’re a site dedicated to Latin@ Literature, let’s focus on Sylvia and Tomás for a moment. The two are loyal to friends, family, and each other, while having a typical sibling relationship that is sometimes loving, sometimes contentious. Sylvia is a Latin@ lesbian and a main character, which makes her one of the very few in the YA world. She is also accepted by her family when she comes out, as told in a flashback, which is refreshing because this counters the Latin@ families who reject a LGBTQIA+ member because of conservative religious or cultural beliefs. Coming out continues to be devastating for many LGBTQIA+ youth, unfortunately, but I appreciate that Nijkamp portrayed an accepting Latin@ family to show another possibility/reality.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marieke Nijkamp was born and raised in the Netherlands. A lifelong student of stories, language, and ideas, she is more or less proficient in about a dozen languages and holds degrees in philosophy, history, and medieval studies. She is a storyteller, dreamer, globe-trotter, geek. Her debut young adult novel This Is Where It Ends, a contemporary story that follows four teens over the course of the fifty-four minutes of a school shooting, will be published by Sourcebooks Fire in January 2016. She is the founder of DiversifYA and a senior VP of We Need Diverse Books. Find her on Twitter.

This Is Where It Ends, Marieke Nijkamp’s debut novel, captures 54 harrowing minutes of a high school shooting through the perspectives of four students who have personal connections to the shooter. They are alternately hurt, betrayed, confused, and guilt-ridden about their possible roles in the tragedy and what they could have done to stop it. Two of the main characters are Tomás and Sylvia, unspecified Latin@ twins. Sylvia is trapped in the auditorium with the shooter, while Tomás is among those outside and trying to help. Author Marieke Nijkamp joins us today to answer a few questions about her intense debut.

CINDY: What inspired you to write about a U.S.-based school shooting? What kind of research did you do to capture the intensity of this kind of tragedy?

MARIEKE: A lot of it—from before I started drafting through final edits. I read firsthand accounts of shootings, I listened to 911 calls, I plowed through hundreds of pages of investigative reports, I talked to people, I kept up with news and social media feeds as active shooter situations emerged, I familiarized myself with the psychology of being held at gunpoint. As much as possible, I immersed myself in what we know about school shootings (which is both a lot and not a lot at all). And I tried to translate that to the book.

Even now, when shootings happen, my first instinct is to drop whatever I’m doing and absorb what is happening, listen to people as they share their experiences.

CINDY: Using present tense and limiting the time frame to 54 minutes puts the reader in the moment. As a writer, what made you decide to tell this story as it unfolds?

MARIEKE: When I set out to tell this story, I wanted to tell the story of a school shooting. Not the lead up, not the aftershocks, but the shooting itself. So I knew early on I wanted that limited timeframe, because I wanted, as much as possible, to recreate the experience and the feeling that, from one moment to the next, your entire life can be upended.

It presented some challenges while writing – not just because of the timeframe, but also because most of the action takes place in the same building and even the same room. But I’m a plotter at heart. And I spreadsheeted to my heart’s content.

CINDY: The novel alternates first-person perspectives, but the one person we don’t hear from directly is Tyler. He causes the tragedy, and we find out about him through the other characters, but we never get inside his head. As a reader, I found this powerful because whenever something like this happens, we want the shooter to explain why, but no answer to that question is ever enough. For me, seeing the story through everyone else reinforced this idea, but I’m curious about why you chose not to give Tyler one of the first-person POVs?

MARIEKE: For me, that was actually one of the main reasons to not include Tyler’s point of view. Because, like you say, we are all looking for answers, and they’re never enough. Besides which, we don’t have a singular profile of a shooter, beyond some general elements (most shooters are white, male, and often though not always dealing with loss, grief, resentment). I didn’t want to recreate a profile based on one interpretation, because it’s always going to be exactly that: one interpretation.

Beyond that though, for all that Tyler is a central character in this story, it’s not his. It’s Tomás and Fareed’s story. It’s Sylvia and Autumn’s story. It’s Claire story. To me, the story always belong to them, to the victims and the survivors.

CINDY: Because of your work with DiversifYA and We Need Diverse Books, I wasn’t surprised by your novel’s diverse cast of characters, including an interracial/ethnic lesbian couple (sooooo few depictions of such couples, so *applause*). Although, since it’s set in a small, fictional Alabama town, you could have resorted to creating a less diverse cast of characters. Why was it important to include so much diversity?

MARIEKE: You know, I never get asked why Claire is straight, white, non-disabled. And that is as much a choice as all the others are.

The thing is, when I set out to write THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS, I wanted to be as respectful and as true to life as possible. When I did take poetic license, I did so by keeping in mind the adage I talked about with many other WNDB team members: first, do no harm.

To me, that didn’t just mean doing the academic research; it meant reflecting life as I know it and as so many friends and so many of my teen readers do. School shootings do not just affect non-marginalized, affluent teens. And even if Opportunity were 95% white and straight, that doesn’t erase the other 5%. Why should they not be the heart of the story?

CINDY: As you begin your debut year, do you have any advice for pre-published writers?

MARIEKE: I’ve come to learn that no advice fits all, but to aspiring authors, I’d say: tell your stories, the stories your most passionate about, in your own way. To pre-published writers anticipating their debut: be grateful to be on this journey, and be mindful to enjoy it. It’s a wild ride and it’s a wonderful one, too. And it’s so, so worth it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marieke Nijkamp was born and raised in the Netherlands. A lifelong student of stories, language, and ideas, she is more or less proficient in about a dozen languages and holds degrees in philosophy, history, and medieval studies. She is a storyteller, dreamer, globe-trotter, geek. Her debut young adult novel This Is Where It Ends, a contemporary story that follows four teens over the course of the fifty-four minutes of a school shooting, will be published by Sourcebooks Fire in January 2016. She is the founder of DiversifYA and a senior VP of We Need Diverse Books. Find her on Twitter.

Bruises. That’s what I saw on the face and body of a 15-year-old girl a few years ago as the school nurse examined her in front of me. She was also covered in scars, both physical and emotional. Her body stood frozen with eyes fixed on the floor as she was observed for signs of abuse. Her face was drenched in fear and shame. Fear of what the repercussions of my visit would be and shame of having not covered her bruises well enough so as not be seen. At that moment she was not Latina, African American, Italian American, or a member of any other ethnic group. She was a child. An abused, broken, petrified child.

Later that day, my coworker and I stood, unwelcome, in a living room. We confronted the older brother who physically assaulted that young lady along with the family who defended him. She had served her brother (“the man of the house” in his father’s absence) cold milk instead of hot milk and was irritated at being asked to warm it. The punches and smacks followed, as did the bottom of the stairs when she tumbled down.

Ultimately, the police ordered the monster of an older brother out of the home. I felt everything but relief as I watched him smile and glare at the young lady he abused while he was escorted away. I knew I couldn’t protect her forever, even though I so desperately wanted to. When all was said and done, I had to go home. Unfortunately, so did she. The next day I would have to be at my desk, bright and early, to write a report of my investigative findings. I couldn’t say what I wanted to. I couldn’t write what I saw in the eyes of the people I had met or the emotions felt in the air and chaos of the room. My report would be in black and white–what my trained eyes saw, what my recording ears heard, and what my supervisor told me had to be done.

That was my job. Clocking into work every day at 9 a.m. and sometimes driving home 16 hours later in a car owned by the state government. My job was to protect children and ensure their well-being. My challenge was to detach myself from every investigation. I didn’t make kids happy. I walked into their lives, for a short time, and turned them upside down no matter how terrible they already were. I was rarely ever a source of happiness in their eyes even though, in my heart, I knew I was doing the right thing.

I decided to stop working when my first son was born. Yes, I still wanted to go back to work. It was a part of my identity and one of the most indirectly rewarding experiences of my life. But I wanted to become something different. I wanted to bring joy to children who needed it most. I longed for young faces to smile, and not shudder, when they saw me.

So, I’m sure to the dismay of many, when people ask why I write for Latino kids, my answer is simple. I don’t. My cultural agenda is slim. If young readers learn Spanish vocabulary while reading my books, Great! If they pick up on some cultural nuances embedded within my text, Amazing! But that’s not, and never will be, why I type on my laptop or jot on small pieces of random paper. I concoct stories to set my imagination free. I create books to prompt smiles and silent chuckles. I write so young minds, albeit temporarily, can forget about where they are and dream about where they want to be.

Alidis Vicente is a stay at home mother from New Jersey. After graduating from Rutgers University with a Bachelor’s Degree in 2005, she worked with children and families for New Jersey’s Division of Youth and Family Services. She is currently a client of Writers House Literary Agency and is also the author of The Coquí & the Iguana, her first picture book. Alidis, the original Detective Flaca, continues to write stories from her New Jersey home, only now she uses a laptop instead of a notepad… at least most of the time. The Missing Chancleta and Other Top-Secret Cases is a finalist for the 2014 International Latino Book Awards in the category “Best Youth Chapter Fiction Book: Spanish or Bilingual.”